Just When You Think Search Misconceptions Can't Get Any&nbspWorse...

The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

A while back I talked about the frustrations of explaining my line of work to my relatives, but I'm starting to think that maybe ignorance truly is bliss. I recently heard two examples of non-search people's perceptions about how the search engines work, and it is frustrating to think that some people believethat this is actually how the search industry operates.

The first example came from Rand, who told me that a bunch of people he knows who work at a retail company said that they don't believe search engines drive real traffic, and that "no one buys online" because "the consumer isn't invested enough to make a purchase decision." Obviously, we search marketers know that both claims are downright ridiculous. Anyone with an analytics program installed can plainly see that search engines do indeed drive traffic to your site (SEOmoz has received ~20% of its traffic from various search engines thus far for the month of September).

As for the belief that nobody buys online, this ClickZ study from March 2006 shows at least 37% of buyers converted online for overall purchases, with 63% offline conversions, meaning that at the very least some amount of research was made online that influenced their offline purchase decision. Furthermore, iProspect released a study last month stating that 39% of searchers make a purchase after being driven to search from an offline medium. Clearly, people are buying products online, and those that aren't are still doing research online before making offline purchases or are being driven online from offline influence. To think that no website is able to drive a user to make a purchase decision online is simply preposterous and ridiculous; if that were true, there would be no Amazon, eBay, add to carts, PayPal, not to mention millions of other retail-based websites. None of them would exist. Since this is obviously not the case, one would logically assume that someone out there is making purchases online, right?

The second example, believe it or not, is even worse. A friend of mine works for a company that is shifting its focus from solely selling traditional radio to that of an Internet company that also has some radio stations. Recently he and his coworkers had a meeting with an upper member of regional management. This man outlined how the company's partnership with Google will allow them to "take advantage of Google's auction model" and allow for additional advertising revenue from smaller companies that don't traditionally have enough money to do business with them.

Here's where you should be thinking, "What the hell is Google's auction system?" And this was the man's explanation (keep in mind that this guy is a higher up in the company, and he's telling an entire team of people this):

According to him, Google has been able to take advantage of the long tail model by utilizing an auction system that charges everybody. It doesn't price anyone completely out of the picture, and it's automated in such a way that they can profitably conduct transactions for $50 (or even $5 or $10) because they are, after all, a huge search engine displaying hundreds of results for millions of search terms. His example of how Google's "auction system" works was that if you want your page to show up in Google, you need to pay, say, $30 to be listed on maybe the 200th page, but you can increase your bid and show up on the 7th or 8th page, and you can pay even more to show up on the first page of results. However, Mr. Upper Member of Regional Management made it quite clear that you can't buy the first search result on Google because "Google needs to protect their product's integrity and preserve some relevancy with searches."

Dear God. I feel like a movie goer shouting "Don't open that door! The killer's behind there!" at the movie screen. This guy actually believes that the organic rankings are arranged via a Google-approved bribery system (and yes, he was referring to the organic rankings and not the paid ad platform). If this were the case, do you realize how many PPC (pills, porn, casino) sites would dominate the top of the SERPs (oh sorry, every position but #1, because, after all, Google has a reputation to keep)? Any site with the most money would rank supreme. Does this guy not realize that, logistically, this is an absolutely and wholeheartedly piss poor way to structure a search engine's rankings? Relevance would fly out the window in exchange for cold hard cash. I would imagine that user experience would be extremely negative, and Google certainly wouldn't be the top search engine if they operated on a platform like this.

The absolute worst thing about these examples is that these come from prominent business people who are "educating" uninformed people within their organization. All they're doing is spreading blatant misinformation to their staff, with most of these people being too uneducated or unaware about search to really question what they're being told. I get so frustrated when I hear about instances like the two I just shared. At least with my relatives I can (try to) explain in a basic yet correct way how search engine algorithms work and why they see the results that appear when they perform a search. With misinformed people you have to try and "rehabilitate" them and convince them that yes, search engines actually drive traffic, yes, people actually make purchases online, and no, Google is not essentially a prostitute of a search engine. And this is all too often an uphill battle. Where these people get their crazy ideas is beyond me. I blame MTV.

Sigh. I think I know how Bruce Wayne feels. You save Gotham from peril and not only do you not get a thank you or any sort of appreciation, but some other a-hole breaks out of Arkham Asylum and runs amok, forcing you to have to save the day again.

Basically, what I'm saying is that I think the search industry needs a Commissioner Gordon.

About rebecca —
Rebecca Kelley is the content marketing manager for Intego, a Mac software company. She also guest-blogs/freelances at various places and runs a couple hobby blogs for shits and giggles.

There's these tubes, you see, and they connect all of the internets. If you wanna search for something, you gotta reach your hand in the tubes real fast and try to grab stuff. My cousin's sister's dog groomer got his hand cut off by searching the internet tubes. The doctor "googled" it back on, though.

True story: a person at a Silicon Valley Webguild event said "I always click down to the third page, because I know the first two pages are all secretly ads." Then there are the people who think that they do a unique query, and someone at Google creates the result page for them by hand on the fly.

I mean, how do you even counter that? Martinibuster was there--he can attest that this guy really believed "always click 20-30 results down to avoid the secret ads." Sheesh.

LOL- we just talked on the company podcast a week or so about behavioral targeting, and the fact that some people think some guy behind the scenes at Google is secretly stalking your personal online behavior to determine what ads to serve.

We all have our pet conspiracy theories. Mine is that there is no such place as Rhode Island, but I digress.

Great rant, Rebecca, and thanks for the Batman reference. The air of secret formulas and arcane knowledge that still hangs around SEO is a double-edged sword. It helps to garner business when your clients don't want to have to be GoogleMerlin themselves, but it's a fertile ground for crazy ideas.

Ever wonder why Commissioner Gordon always has to bring out the Bat Signal? It's because his police officers aren't up to the task!

> The absolute worst thing about these examples is that these come from prominent business people who are "educating" uninformed people within their organization.

Somewhere, somehow, these prominent business people have had inadequate search engine education and they are simply passing on this misinformation.

Commissioner Gordon needs a more effective police force like the search industry needs more effective mainstream education. Sure, Batman would get bored but our job as search marketers would be a helluva lot easier.

I feel your pain Rebecca - only a few weeks ago a client of mine was concerned because he believed his website was offline (when I knew for a fact that the site was fine)...

When I asked him how he came to the conclusion his site was off-line he explained that he typed his URL into "the Internet" and it came back saying "no results found".

Digging further, I found that he had MSN set as his homepage and was typing his URL into the MSN search box instead of typing the URL into the address bar.

I tried explaining to him that you can type the URL directly into the address bar of IE or FireFox and this is commonly how people access sites they know the URL for... to which he replied "I don't know anyone who uses IE or FireFox... I never use either of them"

This is the point that I agreed with him and said he was probably right that no one would ever use those programs to view the Internet and let him believe that MSN was what holds the whole interweb together.

(note... I normally would never talk about a client like this... but we all know that there's more chance of Rand giving me a lapdance on Whiteboard Friday than the client ever discovering this comment exists)

Had a look at a new client's old SEO provider yesterday. Under their search engine blurb it read, and I quote:

"Contrary to popular opinion, creating websites that are attractive for search engines, and submitting them for listing is not a costly exercise.

People that tell you that you need to pay them large amounts of money on an ongoing basis to continually submit your site are not telling you the whole truth. The key is to submit your site manually ONCE. After that it is important to keep an eye on your listing to ensure it remains competitive.

The more you rely on search engines to bring your customers to your website, the more important it is to continually review your site positioning. It is your dependence on search engine traffic that dictates how much you invest in ongoing search engine management."

OK, got that? Only submit ONCE and then in order to maintain the rank you get from this all you need to do is "Keep an eye" on it.

It sounds to me that the "upper management" fellow was actually talking about Google AdWords. If that is the case then is he really that far off in his description of how Google PPC works? But yes, if he was talking about "natural" results he is clearly off base, misinformed and just plain wrong.

I too find the perceptions of search engines, SEO, SEM and all related areas often totally misunderstood by the general public, but I am certainly not surprised by it.

On a side note...I love over hearing (eaves dropping) people's (general public's/non-SEO's) conversations about their search behavior. It is always fascinating...and insightful.

Relevance would fly out the window in exchange for cold hard cash. I would imagine that user experience would be extremely negative, and Google certainly wouldn't be the top search engine if they operated on a platform like this.

Not necessarily. If it did, then the same would apply to the ads displayed in AdWords. But Google tends to keep pretty good relevancy of ads by making Quality Score a very important factor in their ranking. That's why you usually don't see viagra ads when you search for sushi bars. :-)

BTW, the term "auction" is what even Googlers use for the ad pricing model, in places like here.

(Oops...my comment shouldn't be nested here. I was originally going to reply to something ladylolauren wrote, but it ended up not relating directly to hers and I forgot that I had clicked to reply to her.)

While there is "relevance" to some extent in AdWords, it's (generally) only relevant in how your phrase would relate to a website selling a good or service. Any website that generates zero to no revenue wouldn't have much of an incentive to advertise...

BUT

What I find however, is the gross lack of SEO in websites that are not commerce focused.

The internet is a great place to make money, however it is also a great place for general knowledge and information transfer.

Those who have the money to invest in quality SEO are in some respects "purchasing" a higher SERP.

Democratization of Information?

I do agree it is nice that when I search sushi bar there aren't any viagra ads! :-)

Thanks for referencing the August 2007 iProspect Offline Influence on Online Search Behavior Study in your article. If your readers are interested in checking out any our 10 other studies -- some focusing on search marketer trends -- some on search engine user behaviors -- they can access and download them free (don't even have to fill out a form) at: http://www.iprospect.com/about/searchenginemarketingwhitepapers.htm

That was truly beautiful. It reminds me of a real estate website company I once worked for where the company president once claimed he's "working" on a deal with Google to show this small companies' MLS listings.

I was like...why would Google work with dinky mr. 20-man website company when they can work directly with the MLS themselves and have the MLSs ACTUALLY kiss Google's butt?

Too often I come across people who are ignorant but think they know something. I'd rather you be willing to learn.

But - that's what we get for this business. I am sure realtors and loan officers get their share of flak for what they do. (case in point, I know realtors had a site called Dont It Yourself aimed at trying to subvertly stop FSBOs & the ignorance that comes from all sides in the real estate business).

Personally, I love this though. So long as people are still mystified by it all, we can all be in business. Some of us take advantage of others, some of us truly want to educate and some of us dont care either way.

Oh yea - and you can see the same thing with stock brokers, insurance agents, etc. It comes with the game.

I still love getting potential clients asking why their site doesn't show up in the SERPS when they are using plenty of targeted keywords on their site, and after reviewing their site see that all of their "content" is in an image in the middle of the page.

"Googlebots donn't read text in images" I tell them and the response is usually "Why not?" instead of asking "Then why did my web designer create all of my content as images".

Rebecca, I loved this rant. I often find myself wishing that about 5 years ago I would have recorded myself saying "now here are the natural listings over here and those up top and on the side labeled *Sponsored Links* yes, those are ads" with a little video montage. I could have just played the tape over and over whenever someone asked, would have saved so much time and aggravation. Sounds like it's not too late!

Sigh. I think I know how Bruce Wayne feels. You save Gotham from peril and not only do you not get a thank you or any sort of appreciation, but some other a-hole breaks out of Arkham Asylum and runs amok, forcing you to have to save the day again.

Rebecca you crack me up. I sat there shaking my head at the entire post, marveling how dumb people can be. And then this. People really think I'm nuts at my company.

I can only imagine what other people say without professionals around. The business leaders here always ask "but what about SEO? Shouldn't we do X to rank in Google?" And trust me, X is usually very stupid. I then have to explain for the 80th time that isn't not Google we need to worry about, but our customers and potential customers. *sigh*

80% of our traffic and 70% of our sales come from search engine traffic. The boss just recently accepted this fact. It's just hard to believe for traditional advertising people I guess. For SEO folks, I still think ignorance is great for business though.

"For SEO folks, I still think ignorance is great for business though."

Indeed - because it makes us all more effective. While misconceptions about the realities and effectiveness of online marketing are frustrating, the general lack of faith that SEO/SEM works is perhaps our greatest tool.

When I present SEO strategies to a client, a common question is, 'why will this work?' and my answer is 'because your competition isn't doing this'

In a way it is good for business but it can also make things more difficult. The fact is that many times you have to get past all of the myths that are rampant to help potential clients actually understand the right things to do. Many times it works but I have seen countless examples of SEO's being turned away because they did not guarantee top results or other garbage. Of course many of these same clients have come back after the shysters ripped them off but the lack of education can still be an issue for qualified SEO's.

Quite simply, what we need is to use a vehicle with massive mainstream penetration, such as films or literature, to educate people in one fell swoop.

I'm sure there's a great film could be made for search optimisation, I've just not found it yet.

But yes, there's a massive problem with consumer education. I've even met someone who thought they were sorted alphabetically. Which made me wonder if they'd ever even seen a SERP, because it's so obviously not!

Unfortunately, I'm not too surprised by the descriptions you have included. All too often I find myself explaining how things get onto the internet in the first place. Then trying to help people understand how they get into search engines...well, let's not go there. You'd think that in ths day and age where our lives are virtually ruled by computers (at work, at home, on your cell phone.....) that people would at least have some basic understanding of how things work. Sadly, it just ain't so.

LOL, It only gets better Rebecca. Now of days I just make up stuff just to see people's faces. If Im really bored I will just say Im into "data mining" and call it a day since most find that a boring topic.

i talked to someone last week who felt google was spying on her. she switched to gmail and noticed that when she opened her mail, google placed links there related to the subject of the email. suddenly google is the fbi.

My boss thinks that buying new domain names and redirecting them to Google increases our SERP's. She's highly competitive, and stressing patience in link building and content generation usually takes a 30 minute conversation about once a month.

She will listen to me, and eventually will understand that we can't buy our way into top positions.

Wow, not sure how I rubbed you the wrong way here, but my point was that I was arguing with the group's claim that "NO ONE" makes a purchase online, which clearly isn't true. You know that and yet you stick up a flame war post saying I "shouldn't believe everything [I read]" and that I'm feeding my users "junk information."

Maybe my next "blog-post quota" subject should be about how I'm not the only one who "[doesn't] have any knowledge on [my] given subject"...

So, only people who sell products in stores work in the real world? I suppose that makes all of us who work online, publish magazines and newspapers, write books, teach, produce or sell services, etc. imaginary?

I've spent 10 years working with brick-and-mortar clients helping them to understand where and how the web is relevant to them, and the web has plenty to offer many industries. Your point about any given brick-and-mortar shopper being more likely to buy than an online shopper may be true, in some cases, but every shopper that you pull into a brick-and-mortar store costs you many more dollars than an online shopper. Easy come, easy go, as they say. The net result is still very lucrative for many businesses, and I often find that physical products are easier to sell online than services.

"Hey.... Rand says we have a blog-post quota to make this month, so just make something up... even if you don't have any knowledge on your given subject."

Rand has never asigned us blog post quotas. It's nice that you're taking the time to speculate about what goes on in our office, but if you'd like others to verify their facts before putting them on the Internet, please do so as well.